


frank's mixtape sucks

by Veletrix



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: (the experts are joey and quentin), Blood, M/M, but like you KNOW franks an edgy piece of shit with his music like c'mon haha, edit: felt like adding a follow up chapter and i GUESS labeling it as a ship fic, frank has shit taste in music the experts agree, im right and you know it, not overly shippy but can be taken as the beginning of Something, note: im not saying death metal and dark edm are actually bad bc my goth ass enjoys them too, slight character study for quen, the title applies both story-wise and gameplay-wise, what can i say i love my boy, yeah im bringing spicy meta opinions into the tags of my stupid horror fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 18:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veletrix/pseuds/Veletrix
Summary: Frank's music is mostly death metal and brutal EDM: little in ways of rhythm, littler in ways of self-awareness. Quentin thinks it's shit, and so does Joey.Even when one's bleeding out on the ground, and the other's holding the knife, there's still some strange common ground to be found in that.(In other words: Joey and Quentin bond over Frank's horrible music taste. It's a bit odd for them both.)





	1. frank's mixtape sucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys what's up, been about mmmmm *checks phone* six months since my last fic!
> 
> good news is that I feel like my writing's improved, and, hey! this one's actually edited! yay!
> 
> this fic isn't as funny as it could've been (certainly not as humorous as the 'quentin accuses michael of tax evasion' one. which, tbh, i rly hate now), but i did find it a lot more cathartic to write. hope you guys enjoy it as well ^^
> 
> disclaimer: i actually like frank. but it's also my god-given duty to constantly make fun of him, so. sorry frankie.
> 
> another disclaimer: my musical repertoire is pretty limited, especially concerning anything 90's that isn't depeche mode or riot grrrl. apologies for the wasted opportunities.

“Is that EDM?”

Something was pounding out the headphones hooked around Legion’s neck, destroying what was left of his humanity, and Quentin couldn’t do much but overhear. Exhaustion and blood loss and baleful disbelief kept him from interpreting the gutting beats as music at first. It’d been so long since he’s heard true, sleek music. Tunes that didn’t come from a worn guitar and jingling songbird. His head craned to look up at Legion.

Such a casual, bare thing from a killer, it felt like they’ve been flipped to the wrong channel. More of a casual game, a day-trip; not life and death, murder and torture. This was the giddy kind of hellishness brought on by teenage brutality and stolen alcohol. Trying to make the worst of the secrets of growing up. Legion leaned over, skeletal face readjusting under blue shadows, fingers hooked around Quentin’s belt. Everything paused.

The music wasn’t Quentin’s type.

“It’s _something_ ,” the killer finally replied.

Closer, now, he can start to piece together the beats. It was difficult--they were so fast and brutal and unfamiliar that he had to visibly tilt his head towards it. It _did_ sound like EDM, but rustier, more jumpy. Like a prototype. Not something new and inexperienced, but old and archaic--as archaic electronica can get.

Now, the killer talking to him. _That_ was something to hear alongside the music. It sounded fresh, it sounded overwhelming. Quentin’s tired eyes went from the bone-dripped face to the janky headphones to the blue-black wire to the loose belt. Legion crouches, and the heavy jacket hisses, revealing a rectangular pack hooked to his side. Thin and fist-sized, the shape of a--

“Mixtape?” Quentin mumbles, “That’s so analog.”

“ _Analog_? Man, this stuff is the shit.” It was the most human Quentin had witnessed in a killer. Not violent, just offended, like a day at college.

Quentin said, voice rising, not in volume but in confidence, “It’s kind of shit.”

Legion pauses for a bare moment. Karambit dangles from forefinger and thumb, like a decapitated claw. Then he laughs, low and gravelly. It’s too young. “Yeah,” he agrees, “it sucks like hell.”

There was a mercy in that sentence. Pity considered and left behind, now Quentin was spared through casual consensus. He realized this the moment Legion dropped his head, slanted over bent knees. The hand is removed from Quentin’s belt. Legion looked, suddenly, like he shouldn’t be here. Someone just taking a rest, crouched on the curb after a long day of rebellion. Quentin would see kids just like that at Springwood, loitering outside of gas stations and smoking under graffiti. He used to be one of them. Now he was just bleeding out on rotting floorboards, staring at a broken facsimile.

His blood drips between them, dark as a secret. Legion looks back up.

“Sure as hell aren’t my tunes.”

“Then why,” Quentin’s voice struggles, “listen to them?”

“Because Frank’s an angry shit and it infects through his shittier music.”

A sudden throw of a name--as though Quentin was supposed to understand it. What the hell did _Frank_ mean to him?

(The other male killer. The first in the four-piece ensemble. The one in a porcelain grin, and threw a hissy fit over every time he got pallet smacked.)

Quentin makes a couple of considerations. He adds the sudden change in demeanor, subjects the life spilling out of his stomach, and equals it to a suddenly distracted killer. His voice hovers dimly, “He might like Knife Party.”

Legion hovers too. Thinly muffled through death’s mask, “Never heard of it.”

“Rabbit Junk?”

“Nope.”

“Uh--” he coughs, a strain of spit and blood through pale fingers. Quentin didn’t know a lot of violent EDM. “Dance With The Dead?” Then he shook his head. Dance With The Dead was more synthwave, he thinks.

“Dude,” Legion says, sounding amused, “and we thought _our_ tastes were underground.” He taps the very tip of the blade on Quentin’s temple. A sudden cold swept through him, and he shivered as his heart pushed more blood out.

“They’re not--” a heavy sigh, “they’re not underground. I’m not even into that music and I know them.”

The music jerks, suddenly, towards screaming men and savage drums. No more death machines, flinging themselves off cliffs and bass drops. Despite the turn to the industrial, it was still just as gutting to the ears.

Quentin made a strained face. “Heavy metal?”

Legion huffs. Quentin was starting to get a better grasp of his voice. “All the blood loss getting to you? This shit isn’t mine.”

“Frank’s.” Quentin tries it out. The floor was getting darker.

“Frank’s, yeah, _him_.” He said _him_ like it was a strange object, one that he wasn’t sure to revere or to throw in the fire. “He’s cool, but definitely not my beat.”

“Sounds like…” Quentin’s head was feeling too heavy for his thoughts, arms too light for his body. “He has some issues.”

That didn’t seem to be the right thing to say. Even Quentin had to cringe at it, rusted with fatigue. Legion picked the knife away, not hurting, but still dragging it across the skin. A warning shot.

“You don’t know shit.”

A generator rocketed to life behind them, through the window, a golden light, still not strong enough to fully dissolve the darkness. Less of a beacon and more of getting a point across: one down, two to go.

Legion cursed, and tensed his legs. Time was slowly moving again.

He asked, “You don’t like this music?”

Quentin takes a moment, not out of hesitance but out of exhaustion. “It’s edgy and borderline pretentious. Not a great combo.” It drudged up unfortunate memories that were labelled ‘middle school’ and ‘goth phase’. Neither Quentin wanted to revisit, let alone together.

Legion laughed, and it sounded like a decision being made.

“Hang on,” He straightened up. He wiped Quentin’s blood off on his trousers, and it’s a sudden motion that helps Quentin put everything back into its right context: killer and survivor. Murderer and victim. The one with the knife and the one on the floor. Legion leaves the shack without picking Quentin up.

Quentin rolled over and attempted to make sense of the ceiling’s rotting firmament. The chaotic void past it. Starless and empty, the eye of the moon, even emptier. He wanted to believe there was more to this place than just cycles and go-arounds. The same places, the same people, the same deaths. If he couldn’t leave, then he at least wanted _more_ , for the sake of his boredom.

Nea finds him. Her brow is creased and her mouth is straight, but he couldn’t tell if she was more annoyed than usual. He rarely saw her in trials, often sneaking past killers and teammates alike. She undertook altruism like it was a chore.

She slipped past him and into the basement after she picked him up: her original mission. He leaned against the doorway, wearied by the usual and now also by the confusion. Legion had, ostensibly, let him go. _Hang on._ He wasn’t sure what direction to take that.

The rest of the trial went by like a dream--less fast and more compact. Everything happened as though they were vignettes squashed together, shoved forward in time in one clumsy bundle of events.

First Jake goes down, somewhere. Then he gets gutted, somewhere. The realization of the mori shivers through them, the remaining three. Quentin remembers being hooked at the beginning of the trial, before the strange conversation. The back of his neck prickled.

There’s a question, now: one or four?

Min gets ripped off a generator in front of him. The sparks fly and his face burns. He tries to crawl away from smoke and shock as she’s dragged to the other side of the wall. He scrambles away, already knowing she wasn’t going to come back around.

Understanding that it was just him and Nea, Quentin knew that, realistically, he would be the next to go. Nea wasn’t easy to find, and while he himself isn’t completely brain dead at stealth, he _was_ absent-minded and uncoordinated. (Alternate description: useless and clumsy.)

Nea could stall out a trial until the Entity itself grew tired, as long as she isn’t found. Quentin was going to be the one caught tripping out a window or burning his hand in another generator.

Quentin knew that, for the most part, he was a liability. He tried his best, of course, but he was too tired to actually _be_ the best. He stumbled in chases, ripped open stitches, blew generators, walked face first into a killer’s chest. His survival rate often warred with David’s for being the lowest. Almost pitiful, if he’d actually gave anyone the chance to pity him. They can’t speak a word when every trial ended with his life for another, and him telling them ‘It’s okay’. He wasn’t the best liar, but he was one of the best at being stubborn.

Quentin climbed to the top of a hill, overlooking the green miasma of Azarov’s Resting Place. Always smelled heavily of rotting compost and rust, with the blood just settling underneath. Up top, here, he felt lighter, bird-boned. Less meat and blood and more cloud and air. He tries to gather his bearings, feeling a wave of dizziness. As he leaned against a swaying hook, he spots Legion amongst graves of wreckage. Up here, where it felt both lighter and heavier, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go through with this sacrifice.

Legion turned, and his head tipped back, and they’re looking at each other. It’s a taut wire--no, not a wire, it felt wider than that. A ribbon, maybe. A lifeline.

A gloved hand lifted, and Quentin wasn’t sure what it was doing at first. Threatening him? Trying to throw the knife? No, he realized a few seconds in, it was a wave.

It was like watching an alien creature trying to communicate. Not in Legion’s motions (the wave was a perfect, casual side-to-side), but in the circumstance. Was the wave in mockery, or was it another addition to earlier’s strange mercy? Quentin hesitated greatly, before unfurling his arm, and raising it halfway to the black sky. He didn’t move it, kept it achingly still. They mirrored each other, a packaged reflection. An agreement has been reached.

Legion’s dark clothes whispered through the dull garbage, disappearing from sight. The mutual waves lasted no more than a few seconds. Quentin wasn’t sure if Nea saw--he didn’t feel any more observed than he usually did. But, with tiredness often sanding down the sharp corners of his senses, he could be very well wrong with that.

His hand lowered lethargically, and he’s left unsure. He could feel his weight, now, but not apportioned evenly; it’s all pooled at his feet. It takes too long for him to find the motor controls again, to slide down the side of the rocky hill. As he does, Nea screams.

It was over in the middle--a cat’s caterwauling. No matter how quiet Nea tried to make herself, in the end, humans were still the noisiest animals.

The weight had shifted again: this time, to his gut. Pressing down, but also up against his heart and ribs: guilt. Overly familiar, leadened guilt, often expanding into something bigger than him. A heavy swallow. He doesn’t know where hatch was, he’d spent too much time thinking about other things and accepting his death.

By this time, Quentin doesn’t try and stealth it. He goes back to the shack, never thinking that the hatch would actually be there. And it’s not, but Legion is.

There’s a large, maroon stain on the floorboards. Quentin’s blood was already drying, flaking off in the dark lambency, disappearing under hurried feet and fresher scorn.

“Do you know any death metal, too?” Legion asked. This song was angry war between violent synths and resentful guitars, all the lyrics screamed until Quentin’s thoughts went raw. 

“Nine Inch Kills? No, wait, Ice Nine Kills? I can’t remember.” The last time he’d listened to metal properly was when Dean was still alive. “Mindless Self--God, no, I don’t think they count. I really don’t fucking know.” The exhaustion came as a terrible blow, and his voice heaved.

“I don’t know much, either, man,” Legion unhooked the headphones, and replaced the karambit in his hand for it. It messily blared between them. “My tunes are way better.”

Quentin crossed his arms to keep an invisible cold out. “What kind is yours?”

“Real chill. Life sucks, might as well find something you can unwind to. Got like, Depeche Mode. _Violator_ will always be their best album.”

“Depeche Mode? They’re pretty old. Good, but old.”

“ _Old_? They’re the most mainstream I can think of for your sake.”

Quentin’s brow furrowed, and he looked at the cheap headphones, the packaged mixtape, the content of their conversations. “I don’t think we’re on the same page here.” He said. “I mean, I think we’re from different times.”

It didn’t sound as unbelievable as he thought it would. In a realm of constant resurrection, different time periods seemed unnaturally natural in comparison. (Plus, Laurie existed.)

The music was tempting. Even if it was shit, even if it sounded like the harmonial interpretation of being mauled by a meat grinder, it was still _music_. Quentin felt a crave, a deep-set hunger, for something that wasn’t his anymore. He was almost jealous.

“Maybe we are,” it was hard to tell how much Legion actually believed it, “but, seriously, you should hear how much better mine is.”

Quentin raised a brow, “Are you offering?”

At that, Legion pulled himself back again. Replaced the headphones, tugged the knife back out. Quentin tensed.

“I wish,” Legion admitted. Not, not admitted: confessed.

Quentin shrugged; a puppeteered lift and drop of the shoulders. He doesn’t know what to say or what to expect.

“Do you ever leave that shitty campfire of yours?”

“How do you know about our--” A sigh. Quentin didn’t want to face his own questions and answers. “I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Really?” Not in disbelief, but in humor over the answer. _I don’t know. Sometimes._

“Yeah, we do. Sometimes. It gets boring.”

“Yeah, looks boring as hell, man. You should really--” Another jerky pause. It was like Legion kept having to remind himself of something, only to quickly forget about it again. Quentin could find a vague sense of kindred with it. (Vague only in how much he really _didn’t_ want to relate to a killer in any way.)

The karambit had been tapping against the solid covering of the walkman--trying to find a rhythm. An obvious difficulty, as there was only so many beats to a scream and a smash. Legion had been fumbling to find his own cadence. Quentin only just noticed the incessant habit, as the death of conversation left him immediately looking for another distraction. (Visuals always worked better for him.)

Blood. The shift in focus reminded him of it. Wet, tacky blood, shiny under the dim light. It wasn’t red, just a darker shade of black. Quentin didn’t have to be reminded so much as being put back on the right track. This was not the time, not the place, not the person.

The tapping scraped to a halt, and Legion wrenched the bloody knife through the air.

“Go find your fuckin’ hatch, already.” His voice was low. “Three’s enough for tonight.”

Tonight. As though there was ever a day, ever a tomorrow. Time worked here, but only by the hands of David’s watch, and one has to wonder how reliable that stays for eternity.

Quentin forced himself back through the doorway, watching the shift of a black hood, the silver glint of a belt chain, the blank wetness behind a skeleton’s gutted eyes. They both were almost the same height. 

He braced a scarred hand on the splintered door frame. “If you ever manage to get out,” he murmured, “I think you’d like Gorillaz.”

Quentin turned his back on Legion, and didn’t run to the hatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i honestly do want to write a follow-up to this, but between college, work, and my rp blog, im not sure when i'll get the chance too :T guess i'll have to wait and see on that lol
> 
> also not *too* happy with how i write joey, so that'll need some work in any future fics. also, i really wanna write frank one day. just to make fun of him more, of course.
> 
> my tumblr blog's been moved to gothiva, but i don't check it nearly as much as my rp blog nowadays. so if you have any fic ideas/requests, feel free to just chuck them in the comments of this fic instead or, dm them to me on my blog :v
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! later o/


	2. joey's mixtape rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin is lonely, Joey felt like rebelling, and they do seem to share an affinity for music, don't they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple of people wanted a followup, so here it is. i'm not...too happy with it, but that's mainly bc i got really burnt out near the end. whether or not i'll add more chapters i have no idea, but hopefully you guys enjoy this regardless.
> 
> also, not fully edited as of yet, im too tired of this fic to handle going back through it. sorry if anything reads weird as a result!

Nea nudged Bill with her leg, “Give me a cig.”

Bill didn’t look away from the fire. “No.”

“Come on, don’t be a bastard. That’s David’s schtick.”

Quentin glanced over at David, hands relenting from the scab on his wrist. David raised his head at the name, but the rest of the sentence only earned a self-satisfied smirk. He knew what he was about.

Bill sighed, plumes of smoke escaping like winter-stained breath. “You’re too young to smoke.”

“Bullshit. I’m at least twenty-three now. Just give it.”

Quentin turned back to his scab. The platelets were lumpy and brown, miniscule rivers of maroon, skin white and tight around it. He’d already scraped half of it off, raw pink, sensitive to the cold, engorged with small bubbles of blood. This conversation wasn’t interesting enough to save it.

Bill shifted, and didn’t dignify Nea with an answer. She squinted at him, then looked up at the empty moon above them all. It was at the epicenter of the clearing, made of black branches and crows’ eyes. The trees curtained this dim-lit circle, not as their friend but as their captor. A dome of decomposing mulch and rusty rot. Even the campfire served less as a source of comfort and more as just an echo of what they've lost.

Nea asked, “What brand is it?”

“You’re not getting it, girl.”

“At least answer me. I’ll leave you alone if you do.”

Bill’s hand went to the pocket of his jacket, but didn’t come back out. “Marlboro.”

“Oh,” she hissed, “you generic piece of shit.”

“Language.” Adam remarked from across the fire. It was with his teacher voice, the _Mr. Francis_ voice.

Quentin, having fully unveiled the vulnerable skin underneath the scab, was now picking out from underneath his nails. Blood trembled from the fresh wound, but didn’t dribble. It was still collecting its weight.

He dipped his head to get a better look, but doing so made him more aware of the sleepless grit in the corner of his eyes, how heavy his head felt, the fact that a thousand deaths wasn’t enough rest to satisfy his body. He pressed his thumb over the sore, staring at the pinpricks of blood that managed to squeeze out from underneath.

“Hey, Quen,” Nea jostled her elbow into his side. His head bobbed. “Ever had Djarum Cherry cigs? They’re the real good shit.”

It took him a moment to process her question, then another to shake his head. “I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, right, you’re actually underaged.”

That took less time to process. “What? I’m not underaged.”

“You’re like sixteen, right?”

In sudden bewilderment, Quentin exclaimed, “I’m not sixteen!”

Meg interjected, “Yeah, Quen’s like eighteen.”

“I’m not eighteen!”

Meg veered over her bent knees, baseball cap shadowing the furrow of her brows, lending her disbelief more urgency than there really was. “What?”

“I’m twenty-one.” Quentin wiped his thumb away, tugging his sleeve back over his wrist. The cotton stung the raw skin.

“I am too.” Ace grinned.

“Oh, shut up.” Meg snorted before turning back to Quentin. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am! I have my wallet, I can give you my ID.” A sentence he didn’t think he’d ever have to say again--it was only a commonality at college. Often the designated driver, and even when not ordering alcohol, he was still asked for proof of age over rags in shot glasses and under vapid neon signs. Sometimes, even with the proof, the suspicion still wouldn't leave the bartender's eyes. 

Meg just shook her head, dismissing the offer. “Shit. I really thought you were eighteen this whole time. Like, damn.”

His hands pressed into the bark of the log, feeling every curve and twist embossing into his skin. He focused on that slightly uncomfortable touch. He didn’t focus on all the eyes on him, on the migraine pushing up against the back of his head.

“The round face is what’s really puttin’ us off ‘ere.” David commented from the side. Quentin shared a look with him--a furrowed brow to a raised one. David looked away first, bored, and goes to stare at his wristwatch.

There are mutterings of agreement and mutterings of other conversations. Quentin ran his hands over his jeans, finally resting them at the knees. He suddenly felt suffocated. Nea’s elbow kept knocking into his right, and Jeff’s thigh was brushing his left. Caged by heatwaves, crested by the pricklings of anxiety. He took a deep breath, chest expanding almost painfully. 

Around them, the woods were deep and dark and dangerous. Survivors rarely wandered too far, often only going to use the murky pond, or to look for more offerings. Sunny primrose blossoms, bleeding amaranth, quaint bog laurels, melancholic Sweet William. They were everywhere, crushed underfoot or picked by human hand. Always grew back by the time you returned from trial, never running out. Time echoed and the flowers cycled back through life just like them.

Quentin finally made good on his discomfort, pushing himself up and over the log, ready to traverse the raw black woods. People glanced at him, no one said anything. As far as they were concerned, he wasn’t going far.

As far as _he_ was concerned, the world was muffled. Corners blunted, paths made of only fog or mist, needles or pins. The pond nearby still had their blood swimming in it.

There was a distinct curtain dividing the sea of trees from the lambent clearing of their campfire. Stepping through it was the cold’s open invitation to take what little heat he brought to it. Despite the strong moonlight, it was still difficult to properly gather his bearings. The trees were tightly huddled together, branches holding hands, leaves whispering into each other’s boxed ears.  
The pond was a blank slate of crystal darkness. It was hard to garner exactly how deep it was--no one was particularly interested in testing it out. Could be something truly eldritch down there. They stuck to the banks, cleaning their faces and dumping water into each other’s unattended shoes.

The bog laurels grew around here, but he didn’t pick any. At some point, he’ll grow bored of laying in the grass, staring at nothing. (The sky, yes, but there was nothing but the black of the night and the white of the pupil-less moon.)

Really, he wanted to go further. Sometimes a path would open within the hollow woods, and sometimes they would follow it down to a familiar realm. The blue terrarium of a mine, the paling skeleton of a hospital, the mossy grave of a land-bound steamboat. Devoid, always, of killers and hooks and generators and gates. Just how Quentin believes they should be: normal, uncaged parts of the forgotten world. 

They were fun to explore without the threat of a knife at your back. Rifling through yellowing newspapers and magazines, inspecting eerie portraits, finding something unique in each realm to do. Books in a library, snow piles at a lodge, swing sets in a playground. He tended to avoid a couple, though.

Eventually, his hands start to clench and unclench, getting antsy. With what he learned from Claudette and his own trials and errors, flower braiding wasn’t too difficult for him now.

When he sits up, there is a skeletal face adjacent from him.

The body blends into the shadows, only the marrow-drooled skull can be seen. Empty caves for eyes, mouth hidden behind a cage of pallidity. For a quick moment, Quentin sickened himself into thinking it truly was a decapitated skull. Someone’s bleached face, left waiting for him. (Kris? Dean? Jesse? His own future?)

His nails dig painfully into his open sore, trying to return to wakefulness.

It didn’t come because he was already awake. He blinked, and the skull shifted, revealing a heavy black jacket and a thick silver chain looping from underneath. The moonlight just barely lent Legion his shape, and Quentin felt like his whole life was just imaginary.

Legion didn’t say anything. Quentin didn’t either, at first. His nails stayed, searing his wrist.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” It was quiet and even, but both were staged. Apprehension hung thickly in his throat.

Legion gestured vaguely, his arm raising, fist furled over nothing. No knife. A shrug. “Waiting for you,” then, he added, “I guess.”

“You _guess?_ ” Not a panic attack, but something parallel to it. Anxiety was simmering under his heartbeat, a heat spreading over the back of his neck. “For how long?”

“A bit.” The ambiguity revealed the truth. Most likely, it was longer than just that.

Quentin’s fear was not directed at Legion as their specific person, but towards what their presence here meant: the killers could get to them at the campfire. Or, at the very least, observe and learn. Voyeurs, unseen, discovering everything about them while they continued to die in the dark. It felt, Quentin thought bitterly, immensely unfair. 

He often noticed how quiet the woods truly were. Every now and then, there would be a wolf howling in the distance. Crows unsettling themselves with sharp, collected cries, either equally far away or just above his head. Other than those increments, though, everything was silent. No wind to rustle the leaves, no crickets chirping through the night, and rarely a foot would find a lost twig to snap. It was truly a disjointed world.

Legion wasn’t moving from the edge of the clearing. Milky fog stayed low to the ground, melting into the cold. (It was always cold, even near the fire it just pressed up against your back, arms locked and breath soft. They were just desensitized to it now.)

Quentin let out a low sigh, dragging his fingers through the loose soil. He can feel it building up. As long as Legion kept this distance, and Quentin knew the facsimile of a fire’s safety was behind him, he could mask his trepidation for now.

Still, he was afraid. Afraid, but not unused to it. That was just his life now.

“How often have you been coming here?”

Legion was silent for far too long. Quentin wondered if Legion just didn’t hear him.

“I brought you something.”

“That’s--” Quentin waved his hand harshly, voice taut, “that’s _not_ what I asked. Do you guys usually creep on us between trials?”

Legion shrugged. Under the bulky jacket, the hunched movement made him look formless, like a shadow with only a rawboned face. “I’ve only seen a couple of...them...around.”

“Shit.” Concise, sharp, ruined. Quentin felt the anxiety empty into him, but what was more fear to someone who was already fearful? His suspicions have been met. He could try and do something about it, but he didn’t know what. Everything here was so _limited_ , and, really, it felt like this wasn’t actually going to change much. He almost laughed at how revoltingly sardonic it all was.

Everything just felt like one big, horrible, morbid joke.

“Listen,” Legion’s voice cut through, “I’ve got something to show you.”

“Is it a knife?” It comes out so bitterly that it flattens into more of a statement, the question mark only being heard because of the wording of the sentence.

“No, I didn’t bring it.” He took a moment before stepping away from the treeline. Quentin pushed himself up, hastily backing away.

Legion approached further, but slower now, gloved hands raised to show now weapon. He seemed to be treating it as though Quentin was a wild animal he was trying to coax the trust out of, and Quentin can only wonder how much presumption Legion really held for him.

Curiosity was a dangerous but undeniable thing, and Quentin often struggled to be stubborn against it. He stopped backing up. But shoulders stayed locked, knees stayed bent, and he was always ready to bolt.

Legion only took a few more steps, not risking too much. Now, it was an easier distance between them. (Under normal circumstances, it’d still be too far to be actually considered _polite._ )

A frozen moment between them, breaths puffing out coldly, inaudibly. Then, gradually, Legion’s hand went to the pocket of his hoodie. Quentin watched, eyes focused, waiting.

He recognized the curve of headphones, the ribbon of wires, the boxy Walkman. Even in the dark, even when they were crumpled together in one hand, its desirable novelty bulleted through his mind.

Reluctantly, he dragged his eyes away, back to Legion’s clothed mask.

He asked cautiously, “Is that it?”

“It’s all I got,” Legion replied. His voice was lowered, too, sounding almost concerned. Quentin wondered how much of this was just wishful thinking.

“Why?”

Legion paused. Even with no face to read, Quentin can tell he was struggling. Finally, “I told you my beats were better. Remember?”

A strange feeling settled in Quentin’s gut. It wasn’t fear, it was disbelief, asking to be suspended. It was imprecise and rubbery, but _something_. 

Quentin asked, “Are you _serious?_ ”

“Yeah?” He almost sounded incredulous, as though Quentin was being unreasonable. Quentin felt frustration bubbling in his blood.

“So, what? I’m supposed to just _trust_ you? Sit down and--and, what, listen to music with a guy who’s killed me and my friends over and over? Pretend this is all just--”

“I never said I liked doing that shit.” Legion snapped.

Quentin jerked head. “But you still do it. You’re a killer for a reason.”

He only knew Krueger’s story, and only partially knew Michael’s from Laurie. The rest were hazy mysteries--although, based off appearance and methods and hissed mockery, the others’ were most likely just as horrific. Some overflowed with hatred and malevolent joy--doctors and clowns--while others seemed so confused they fell headfirst into savage anger--spirits and hillbillies. Others were harder to pinpoint, or were slight variations or intersections of the two categories. Quentin spent more time than he’d care to admit thinking about it. 

Legion was new and they were an oddity. Childish. Manic. Loud. They spoke in full sentences with specific nicknames and slang. They were lucid and so terribly _human_ that it delved past fear and into worry. A worry that desolated, that tricked them.

“I’m…” Legion quieted, and the silence simmered between them. Quentin didn’t think he could find a killer with enough to self-recognition to be at a loss for words.

Quentin spread his arms. They couldn’t stay like this forever. “There’s a line, man. A line that I don’t think either of us should cross.”  
Legion replied bitterly, “You’re the one who brought it up in the first place.”

“Because I’m sleep-deprived and bored and feeling like I’m going fucking crazy. I’m the one who’s getting murdered over here, let me piss about every once in a while man.”

“Quentin.” And Quentin’s teeth bit into the inside of his lower lip. Only Krueger knew--or at least bothered-with his name. (Disgusting nicknames notwithstanding.) Hearing Legion say it was odd. Hearing it, it felt like they really were edging too close to that aforementioned line. He dropped his arms. Legion was pushing them both.

“Legion.”

“It’s Joey.” 

Quentin blinked. It was such a viscerally common name that he struggled to process it. Such a fun name, _Joey_ , living under a blood and viciousness.

“ _Joey._ Great, listen, this still isn’t right---”

“Do you want to listen to some actual music or not?”

And Quentin remembered the mixtape. How could he let it go, its gleaming silver curve of plastic headphones, a lovingly worn Walkman cover. The promise of something warmly modern and close to home. The temptation was crazy, thrumming through his heart, shaking his hands, pressing against the skin.

“Just music.”

“Just some really good music.”

Quentin’s resolve begins to curl in on itself, the edges rounding slightly like wilted petals. His fingers curl with it.

“Take the mask off,” he said lowly, “it’d be better for, y’know, me.”

Joey seemed to wager between his open hand, and the one holding the Walkman. It came as a shrug, an obliquely boxy movements that aimed to make it seem effortless. The cloth was tugged off, and Quentin didn’t know what else to expect.

Maybe there was nothing underneath. Just a black hole, sucking in all light and heart, staring at nothing. Or, maybe, the mask _was_ the face, attached hopelessly. Trying to pull it off would be like trying peel off your own skin, and Quentin would see the rubbery stretch of sinew and muscle, flesh tearing, blood gurgling, all forced away to reveal a bony red face. Eyeballs bugging in their sockets, a pair of twitching white maggots, fat and round, with black slits for a nose, clotting fascia and ligaments left to give the reddish skull its sheen.

Or maybe it was just a guy, with smooth dark skin and a quiet look. Bright eyes, dark shadows, something dark smeared over his forehead and eyes, like ash. Young, too young. Not a child, but not gnarled with overuse. Only a few years off from Quentin himself, if he’s interpreted the features correctly.

Quentin blinked. “You’re young.”

“So are you, man.” Joey laughs. There’s a moving face to match with the clear, deep voice, and Quentin is overly mindful of it. He could pretend things were different, like this.

So, Quentin sighed, and sat back down, arms wrapped around his knees. He’s become well-worn in the defensive form of curling in. Joey had the grace to hesitate, and slowly place himself down next to Quentin. The closest they’ve been, side-by-side, with no death intruding.

They don’t share the headphones, and unplugging them doesn’t work, so Joey fiddles with it, turning the volume all the way up. The air settles awkwardly between them. Quentin, suddenly not caring anymore, lays down fully, hands folded over his abdomen.

He was tired, and dense, and just bursting at the seems. Too much effort being spent on something worthless. The Walkman is dropped between them, Quentin can hear heavy cloth shifting, but he doesn’t look.

The music crackles shakily between them, obviously straining out of its shoddy source. Quentin sighed softly, and he felt like he was nothing and nowhere.

“Not bad,” he says, and it was true. The music was a chilled blue, washing over them, taking the beats in a languid stride. Thump, thrum, humming. 

“It’s so much more than that, man. Listen to it for real.” Joey sounded pleased with himself, though.

“Well, I can actually understand the lyrics, so I’ll give it that.” It was a joke and there wasn’t any surprise. Quentin felt sudden familiarity: laying about with friends, in empty parks past one a.m., recovering from the excitement of the night. (Which varied from drinking too many energy drinks while loitering about, to stumbling across a back-alley fist fight near a rave. Quentin always hung back during those.)

An odd dream, laying down and listening to music with the other side’s enemy. Couldn’t be any more settling for Joey, either.

It was a surreal, darkly human scenario, and Quentin could indulge in it, just for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still got plans for a fic with quentin and frank. all i got for it so far is that quentin calls frank a brat, because it's true and he should say it.
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! catch y'all on the flip side


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